Alton Towers accident and 999 calls

It might have taken Alton Towers 11 minutes to call for an ambulance

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but surely that was just to give the teenagers time to take selfies and post on facebook, twitter and snapchat etc before the ambulance crews arrived.

Reply to
ARW
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Maybe but:

" ... ambulance crews said the 999 call was not made until 14:08."

"Crews from the West Midlands Ambulance Service arrived on the scene at 14:35 ..."

27 minutes for the ambulance(s) to arrive. Nearly half an hour of selfies... But isn't 27 minutes some what outside the target response times?
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

It certainly is. 8 mins for a Cat A (immediately life threatening) call

- assuming they knew it was one.

Reply to
David Lang

En el artículo , Dave Liquorice escribió:

Have you ever been to Alton Towers? It's not exactly urban.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

Dave Liquorice scribbled

Then someone thought it might be a good idea to call the fire brigade. According to the Daily Hate, Alton Towers reckon the ambulance service should have called the firemen. Looks like they're more concerned with bad publicity than care of their customers.

Reply to
Jonno

It's a damn site nearer manned emergency services than we are. I should imagine that Ashbourne, Uttoxter, Cheadle have small manned ambulance and fire stations. Stoke-on-Trent/Newcastle-under-Lyme is only 12 miles away, those places will have all the toys.

Nearest, small, manned stations to us are over twenty miles away, 30+ to big stations. But when the roads are closed, as happens for a few days every winter, getting in by road is just not possible or if it is it'll on roads "passable with care by a 4x4 on winter tyres" and take hours.

The NWAS tried to take away the old ambulance on CQC grounds until the community pointed out that even in the summer in good weather the average response time for an external ambulance was about 50 mins. We now have one of the very few, if not the only, retained Ambulance in the country. Paid for by NWAS and staffed by volunteers trained by NWAS to Emergency Medical Technician 1. Which I think means they should be able to keep you alive until the Dr/Paramedic arrives in a GNAS helicopter. One of which is based just a few minutes flying time away. But remember all the Air Ambulance Services are charities, not part of the regional ambulance service or paid for by the regional ambulance service or central government.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

En el artículo , Dave Liquorice escribió:

1) the roads to Alton Towers are narrow and winding and will have been full of cars containing people going to the park 2) they flew in an air ambulance. More than one, I think 3) once they get to the park, they have to navigate the park itself, never mind the crowds, to get to the ride where the accident happened 27 minutes doesn't seem that bad to me, considering.
Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

The roads into here are not much different. Full of people? Early afternnon, Thursday, term time, middle of exam period?

But presumably not until the Ambulance Service had made their first assesement?

I suspect the clock would have stopped when the ambulance called in to say they had arrived at the main gate. Not when they arrived at the incident.

Negociating the park should be trivial, designated senior park staff meet the ambulance and escourt them along a marshalled and pre-planned route to the incident. All page one stuff of the H&S handbook...

Crowds? Early afternoon, etc etc.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

What is more important to me is will Alton Towers owners pay for the rescue services? I feel they should.

Reply to
Broadback

And yet, in this (frankly uplifting) story, the crowd active prevented filming

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Reply to
Jethro_uk

En el artículo , Dave Liquorice escribió:

It's Alton Towers. Rammed pretty much every day it's open

Don't know.

again, it's Alton Towers.

I've been there at closing time and it was still rammed with people.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

Actually there is a lot to be said for good old reliable land lines connected by shock horror, wires!

Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

Maybe they should have used an air ambulance, but I wonder if there are nearby places to land it? I don't know the lie of the land there but the delay could well have been due to traffic going to the theme park in any case. To me, an organisation of the size of Alton should have at least a paramedic of its own on site, surely? Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

Apparantly there are a significant number of people who go to Alton, Hampshire and then ask the way to Alton Towers.

Reply to
Paul Herber

Presuming they pay their business rates, corporation tax, and other duties required by law, then it's hard to frame a case that they haven't already paid for it.

Of course, if you're plugging for hypothecated funding for the emergency services, then start with morons who wander up mountains with no idea what they are doing, and then get lost and cost tens of thousands of pounds to rescue.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Can't be as bad as the PR person in Kent County Council (Tourism) who published the leaflet telling people that Leeds Castle was in Yorkshire. Although it seems to happen more in reverse.

Reply to
Bob Eager

On 05/06/2015 08:49, Broadback wrote: ...

From what we know so far, it seems likely they will pay considerably more than that in fines for H&S breaches.

Reply to
Nightjar

According to the report on the radio yesterday they do, and that is why it was 11 minutes (or similar) between the accident and 999 being called. That was the time for their own paramedics to get to the scene and decide it was too big for them to handle alone.

Reply to
CB

Once, at a Steeleye Span concert at the Back theatre, in Hayes (Harlington), two embarrassed Yanks were invited on stage to explain they were 90 minutes late because they'd gone to Hayes in Kent. (To be fair they were good sports, and got some free goodies, for being such).

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Sad to say Alton Towers are hardly a shining example of corporate honesty. Before being given planning permission at the start of their expansion they undertook to build roads suitable for the traffic. Though being pressed several times they have never done so. As a result the residents of Alton and surrounding area have problems even crossing the road. As though the noise was not bad enough!

Reply to
Broadback

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